[Book] New book

[nablator]

Williams' Voynich work is certainly amatuerish and ill-informed, and on the topic of the Voynich MS, it's essentially useless. So there are a lot of substantive flaws in his work to criticize; his use of the word "paper" is probably not one of them.

I disagree with your characterization of this work as "amateurish and ill-informed". Now that I finished reading it, I can say that the book is as well-written as any history book intended for the general public. It focuses on history of and around the VM: the Voynich family, the antique book dealer business, hoaxes, intelligence, cryptography. It contains a wealth of detailed biographical and historical information (maybe too much, not all of it is directly relevant to the VM). I appreciate the large number of useful references in notes (some of them should be updated, the URLs of the Wellcome website for example). It could use some editing (a few spelling mistakes, nothing too bad) and there might be a few errors: I checked only one paragraph for accuracy and found several, see above. I am not familiar enough with historical/biographical details to notice any factual error without further research.

The study of the manuscript, its codicology, paleography, iconography, statistics, etc. are not the subject of the book but historically important books and studies are listed. There is only a short description of its "calfskin or vellum" leaves in six "folios" (sections). I don't care about the use of proper terminology, this is not an issue since the physical makeup of the VM and its contents are not the subject of the book.

The real problem, for me, is the absence of critical thinking. There is only the forgery by "Wilfred" Voynich narrative, no examination of evidence for/against it. It feels one-sided, biased and unfinished. I don't expect neutrality, I just want to understand why such a definitive statement is made.